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Salary Negotiation and Poker: Start With the Hand You’re Dealt: Unique Value Propositions

Salary Negotiation and Poker: Start With the Hand You’re Dealt: Unique Value Propositions

by | Jun 13, 2011 | Interview Tips, Job Search, Negotiation

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Salary negotiation is a really hard process, and one of the top concerns of job-seekers in any industry. It’s the “poker round” of the hiring process, where both sides try to set aside their enthusiasm for working together and think in their own best interest, cards closely held to their vest, and wait for the other to either show their hand or fold. It can be gut-wrenching and nerve-wracking, because nobody ever wants to leave money on a poker table.

Before I go any further with this analogy, I want to say a couple of things. First, I am a lousy poker player and in many ways, a lousy negotiator, because I’m not motivated by money. I’m usually motivated by fear of losing money, and a desire to win. And I struggle with both, and can be frustrating to play poker with, as a result. I am usually the one to fold early, and I have a lousy poker face. Other players can usually tell when I have a winning hand, and they will fold early rather than fork over a lot of money. So take my advice about poker and about negotiation at your own risk! I usually end up leaving money on the table, or having others walk away out of sheer frustration.

But come along for a moment, and let’s break this down, using the poker game analogy, because I think many people can relate to it.

When you are dealt a hand in poker, you know what it is, and depending on whether you are playing stud, or draw, you either know your hand outright, or you can make a couple of trade-outs for fresh cards, to see if you can find a hand worth playing.

If you are playing stud poker, you know your hand from the get-go, and can make your bets based on that hand and your perceptions of the moves others around the table are playing, and whether they are betting, calling or holding.

If you are playing draw poker, you may place an initial bet, based on your gut feeling about being able to cobble something together worth doing, and then raise, call or fold, again based on the moves that other players make in response.

In the salary negotiation process, you also have to start with the hand you are dealt. It starts with your Unique Value Proposition. This is the where you describe your knowledge, skills and experience in ways that show your potential fit into a position. The keys to putting together this UVP (also referred to in the business world as a Unique Selling Proposition or USP) is that you have to explain who you are, what you can bring to the table, and why you are the best person to do so.

Let’s put a formula to negotiation, using your Unique Value Proposition:

  • First, describe who you are, in terms of current education, skills and experience.
  • Second, differentiate your education, skills and experience from other candidates.
  • Third, describe, in terms as concrete as possible, the value that you will add to the employer’s bottom line, that others cannot. (i.e., how you will solve their problems.)
  • Fourth, be ready to fold and walk away when the stakes get too high.

As I mentioned before, I am a lousy negotiator and this does affect my bottom line. I’m going to be spending more time in the near term explaining the Unique Value Proposition for this site and for my coaching programs, trainings and consulting services.

In the process, you’ll see content on this site, and the nature of the free and paid programs that go with it, change. I’m doing this for two reasons: so you can clearly see the value offered, and so that I can tweak the business model so that it results in sustainable business. In short, because being a good coach and a lousy businessman isn’t sustainable, and I really want to win, for the sake of my family and all they’ve sacrificed over the last couple of years to help me build my sites and my business.

It’s basic economics in action. Let’s return to what I learned in ECON 201 when I was actually listening to Dr. Benjamin’s lectures in Sirrine Hall my sophomore year at Clemson, when I wasn’t sleeping off the night before, or checking out the cute sorority girls who wouldn’t really even tell me the time of day.

Transactional business is driven by the concept of marginal utility. The success of any business model hinges on the perceptions of price in relation to utility of the product or service. In business transactions, people (including employers) don’t pay for experience. They don’t pay for history or content. They pay for value.

When utility (perceived value) outweighs price (i.e., risk), people will pay more (by upping their ante.) When price (risk) outweighs utility (perceived value), it’s easy to fold and walk away.

Key questions to consider in preparing for negotiation:

  • How are you presenting your value?
  • How are you contrasting your unique value against other options (other candidates, or starting over with a search.) This might also be seen as overcoming objections to price.
  • How comfortable are you in protecting your unique value, by folding (walking away)?

Once you get these points down, you’ll be ready to not only play, but to win.

So are you going to up the ante, call, or fold?

Hate my analogy? Love it? Tell me in the comments!

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QR Codes: Like Poop on Your Résumé

QR Codes: Like Poop on Your Résumé

by | Jun 10, 2011 | Job Search, job search tools, Resumes and CVs

This week, I’ve been putting out articles on Interview Ecology, and exploring the risks and benefits of introducing the “new and shiny” into the process. We’ve considered whether bringing a iPad into an interview is akin to bringing an invasive species into an eco-system.

This ecosystem approach relies heavily on the idea that anything that distracts or disrupts may destroy the delicate balance of a search process, and bring up dissonance in respect to person-environment fit, resulting in a candidate not getting a particular position.

Which forces me to bring up a particular pet peeve of mine: the all-the-sudden popular and ugly-as-sin QR code. I hate them, because like many fads, most people rushing to use them don’t understand how to make sure they add value to the experience. In general, I feel that most people might as well take a poop on their résumé as put one of these on it, because adding a QR code without adding something of value to the “interview ecosystem” is well…just a load of crap.

I’m already anticipating the response from candidates and tech geeks who think these things are cutting edge and allow a new layer of interactivity that wasn’t possible before. Well, I call bullshit. Scanning these blotches into a smartphone just allows lazy people to avoid typing a URL into their browser, as if the 20 seconds of time spent doing so will add up, like all the partial pennies Richard Pryor dumped into his bank account in Superman III, and will result in the résumé screener having a richer, more exciting , and complete view of the candidate.

Bullshit. Bullshit. BULLSHIT.

The same can be achieved by pointing someone toward a regular URL or hyperlink. QR codes only add new functionality to a paper résumé, which you probably aren’t viewing anyway. And anyone with half a salt lick of sense in their head can run a long URL into an URL shortener. So if space on the résumé is your major concern, that’s no argument, either.

Now, I will admit upfront to being a résumé geek and a purist. I don’t believe all the hogwash people throw around about résumés going away. Advances in technology and social media are just changing how they are delivered. And nothing takes away from the basic truths at play:

  • Your résumé needs to be targeted toward your industry, level of experience, and the level of position you are seeking.
  • It needs to be scannable (visually scannable)
  • There has to be a sense of logical and visual flow that draws a reader in, and keeps them reading and scanning. And…here’s the big one…
  • It needs to be attractive and not full of distracting bullshit.

I had a client recently work with me on his CV and he had a QR code on it, at top right. I asked him why it was there. He replied that he wanted to show himself as cutting edge and tech savvy. So I asked him where the QR Code goes, and what value was added by putting it on there. And…wait for it…it went to an online pdf copy of his CV!

We talked a bit and I told him I didn’t see the point of having it there, if it only went to his CV. He was really tied to keeping it there, so we came to a compromise position. He had also been updating his LinkedIn profile, which had some great recommendations on it, and some other links to relevant information. So we decided to point it there, because doing so added some value to the equation. The result: the QR code went from being poop on his résumé to being rich compost instead.

My criticism of his strategy should not be equated with a critique his level of technical savvy or his readiness for the type of job he was applying for, and I’ve told him as much. In fact, I think he’s a great candidate, or I wouldn’t be working with him. I don’t work with clients I don’t believe in, because that’s not fair to people on either side.

Ultimately, I’m grateful for the perspectives his situation has given me, and what it allows me to share with you.

Here are the big take-aways:

  • New technology is great, and showing comfort with it is just fine. But using tech badly could actually hurt your candidacy. Make sure that your use of technology is appropriate and that there is a clear point to using it (like adding interactivity or pointing to recommendations or portfolio work.)
  • If using a new way of doing things distracts from your design, content or flow, you really need to weigh the risks of using it against the value added. And if you can’t do this on your own…
  • It pays to talk this sort of stuff out with a trusted friend, advisor, or career coach.

What do you think? Tell me in the comments.

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Tech, Toys and the Risks and Benefits of Introducing "New and Shiny" Into a Job Search Ecosystem

by | Jun 7, 2011 | Interview Tips, Job Search

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Showing yourself to be technologically savvy and forward-facing are incredibly important in today’s job market, so it’s no surprise that job-seekers find themselves exploring the best ways to highlight their tech skills and comfort with technology. But there are potential downsides to bringing along “new and shiny” as you enter into a search process. This week, as we continue our exploration into interview ecology, we’ll explore the risks and benefits of introducing different variables into the job-search ecosystem and hopefully, help you make some intelligent choices about how you integrate these different variables into your search strategy.

The Risks of Bringing “New and Shiny” into a Search Process

I recently traded tweets with a job-seeker who was worried about whether bringing his iPad to an interview might seem pretentious to the interviewers. We had a great and wide-ranging exchange about the pros and cons of doing so, and this conversation kind of converged with another recent one with a client and my interests in person-environment theory and the environment, and resulted in this series of posts.

The Delicate Ecosystem of the Everyday Interview

Let’s return to some basics of this proposed “interview ecology” framework:

  • If the hiring process is considered as an ecosystem, what are the naturally occurring parts of that system? Some possibilities:
  • New variables, before entering into the ecosystem, are assumed to be neutral, and to pose no inherent impact on the environment.
  • Once a new variable is introduced into an ecosystem, whether it is beneficial or invasive/destructive is determined by the nature of its interactions with the natural environment, and the impacts on other aspects of the ecosystem (people, places, resources)
  • Variables that create harmony, or synergy and are seen as potentially compatible with sustainable growth and balance are deemed to be beneficial.
  • Variables that create anxiety or dissonance are seen as incompatible and said to be invasive or destructive.

The Impact of New Variables

Since conversation is the primary form of interaction in an interview, the impacts of new variables on the quality and sustainability of the conversation, and in the formation of assumptions about person-environment fit that derive from that conversation, need to be our main concern and point of discussion in an interview ecology model.

Ultimately, decisions about whether to bring a iPad (or any new tech) into an interview should be weighed against the possibility that it might upset the ecosystem of the interview and distract from the conversation.

Risks to consider:

  • Being seen as inattentive (if your attention to the tech causes the interviewers to think you are bored, then you could come across as elitist or pompous, and this will kill your interview)
  • Being seen as a someone who might not relate with the students you’ll be serving (if you are a “have” and your students are more likely to be “have nots,” will you be seen as an outsider?)
  • Being seen as more interested in technology than people (i.e., your interests aren’t a good match for their needs)

Perceived benefits:

  • An ability to take notes without using paper. (Seems pretty basic when you put it that way, doesn’t it?)
  • Being seen as innovative and comfortable with technology (The assumption being that you will bring innovation and a tech-friendly sensibility to the position and department.)
  • Showing your interest in sustainability (Giving the impression that you will wisely steward resources and consider the impacts of your actions on the work environment.)
  • Creating an impression that you are forward-looking and oriented toward progress and development. (Showing that you have a drive to achieve through innovation.)

Weighing the Benefits Against the Risks

Benefit Risk
Being seen as innovative Being seen as inattentive or bored
Showing an interest in sustainability
Being seen as uninterested in the people or environment that in the system, only interested in resources
Showing an interest in progress Showing a lack of interest in people or the realities of the particular organizational culture

Other Options

So to mitigate any of these risks and the potentially negative impressions that might come with them, what are some other options?

  • Leave the iPad behind (no distractions)
  • Bring the iPad but don’t use it (not as distracting, in relation to attention on your part, and still sends out techie signals, but could still be interpreted in ways that imply inability to relate or interest in other things.)
  • Bring the iPad but only use it for the Q & A portion of the interview (your questions would be there) or any presentation you need to do, and/or for you to use during breaks.

So it really does come down to mitigation of risks and the benefits against the potential costs. In this case, would the benefits (taking notes and seeming tech-friendly and interested in sustainability–which might not be directly related to the job–and the risks all come down to “fit,” with the downside being that you don’t get the job because of a distraction unrelated to your qualifications and how you presented them.

Given this perspective, what do you think you would do?

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How To Overcome Your Phone Interview Hang-Ups: 10 Tips for Success

by | May 13, 2011 | Interview Tips, Job Search

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Phone interviews  are known to create anxiety similar to that experienced by teenagers waiting for an answer from a potential prom date. Symptoms may include sweaty hands, shortness of breath, confusion about what to expect from the conversation, babbling, long pauses, tangents, and the complete loss of reasoning skills. How you handle the conversation once you answer the phone may even determine whether you go to the big dance.

10 Tips for Setting Aside Your Phone Interview Hang-ups

  1. Clean up. (Both yourself and the area where you will be while taking the call.) Take a relaxing bath or shower beforehand. You’ll feel better. Make sure the table or desk where you are taking the call is clean and organized. Be a little obsessive-compulsive: if you plan to refer to notes or your résumé, arrange them in the way you hope to refer to them. Use post-it notes or notes written in colored pen, or color-code text on the documents before you print them out. This is an occasion when over-compensating and over-organizing is easily forgiven, and when it’s okay to sequester yourself for a while and banish the cat and the kids from your immediate area.
  2. Dress up. You’ll feel more confident and professional. While your pajamas may be comfortable, they are not business apparel. Treat the interview like a business meeting. It is one-a sales meeting. Would you buy stock in a company from a guy in bunny slippers who hadn’t shaved that morning? Yeah, I wouldn’t, either.
  3. Stand up. Surely you’ve heard the term “thinking on your feet?” It refers to having the ability to speak extemporaneously in front of an audience. The phone interview is an improvisational dialogue, and you are center stage. You’ll feel more engaged, and standing will force you to stay engaged in the conversation. It may also give you more surface area to work with as you refer to your notes. You can tape your résumé, cover letter and notes up at eye level, and spread out talking points on a desk in front of you. You should get a headset (affiliate link) to allow you to move around and talk with your hands.Who doesn’t love that?
  4. Speak up. If your phone interview is with more than one person, you should expect it to be conducted over a speakerphone. This isn’t always the case, but if the screening committee is vetting multiple people in a short period of time, scheduling a room and doing several interviews at a time makes sense. Since you don’t have any idea whether they can hear you well, speak clearly (a headset with noise cancellation can help quite a bit with this), ask early on whether they can hear you, and pace yourself. If you are talking with five different people, you have five different approaches to taking notes, listening skills, and filtering out distractions. Get feedback early on and adjust your volume, tone, and pace as needed.
  5. Wait Up. (Sorry, bad grammar! I grew up in the South, and we “up” all sorts of terms. It drives my wife Sarah crazy, because she was raised near Detroit, and they say things like “wait” and “put that away” instead of “wait up” and “put that up.” She calls Coke “pop,” too, and well, that just ain’t right.) But, anyway…in this context, I mean pace yourself so you don’t lose your interviewer(s), pause periodically to take a breath, give them a second or two (or longer) to catch up. People comprehend after they hear and process. Allow them time for at least a little of both.
  6. Shut up. And by “shut up,” I mean “be comfortable with silence.” You’re allowed to process, too. You don’t have to immediately answer each question. If you need a second to process, ask for one. If you can’t answer a question, ask if you can move on and come back to it later. Most interviewers will understand, and appreciate the opportunities they’ll have to cover required ground. If they don’t get answers to some key questions, they may end up liking you, but having no basis for inviting you to campus over another candidate. Don’t let wordiness scuttle your candidacy. Do yourself a favor, and enjoy the silence.
  7. Listen up. Nervousness often compels people to spend too much time “in their head” rather than in the conversation. If you aren’t listening, you may be constructing the perfect argument to a question other than the one being asked. Listen actively and effectively.
  8. Finish up. Try to have a beginning, middle and especially an end to each of your major talking points. And plan a summary statement about why you are a good fit for the position, that will allow you to gracefully close out the interview and leave the screening committee feeling they have a good handle on who are as a person and about your viability as a candidate.
  9. Look up. In her wonderful Inaugural Poem “On the Pulse of Morning,” Maya Angelou wrote about having the grace to look up into the eyes of others to simply say “good morning.” There’s a powerful idea of kinship in that poem. It’s about greeting people warmly, appreciating our common bonds, and looking forward with hope. Do this, and you will likely have an open door and a friendly face or two on the other side if you ever cross paths again. Even if the interview didn’t go quite as planned, or you didn’t get the feedback you were hoping for (it’s hard to really know, without the visual cues you get from people’s facial expressions and body language), end the interview on a hopeful and cordial note. Sometimes an opportunity isn’t the right one, or a day just isn’t “your day.” You never know when the right opportunity will come up, or who will be on the other end of the phone line or interview table, when that opportunity arrives. End warmly and you will leave your options open.
  10. Follow Up. How to do this the right way was covered in this previous article. So please read it and use the advice in that post guide you as you keep tabs on your opportunities.

If you have an upcoming phone interview, good luck!

If you still aren’t ready, one of the services I offer are customized mock interviews. I use both common questions and some tailored to your specialty and level of experience. The interview usually takes about 30 minutes, and I record the mock interview and the feedback session which follows (30-45 minutes) and send you some personalized feedback and tips, as well as an .mp3 of the interview. Please contact me if you would like to learn more or schedule a mock interview.

When the Phone Doesn’t Ring: Tips on Following Up After a Job Interview

When the Phone Doesn’t Ring: Tips on Following Up After a Job Interview

by | May 12, 2011 | Job Search

bigstock_man_waiting_for_a_call_2747269When the phone doesn’t ring after you think a job interview went well, you might as well be in your own personal hell. The silence can be deafening, but it’s usually soon replaced by the incessant chatter of your worst critic (the person staring back at you each morning in the mirror!)

It’s important that you don’t get in your own way at this point of the process, because no answer is not the same thing as the answer “no.” If you drive yourself to distraction, or worse, drive the interviewer to distraction in the way you follow up, that rejection may become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Here are some practical tips to deal with the anxiety that comes with waiting for an answer after a job interview, to help you keep your eyes on the big picture. The right job is waiting for you–whether it’s the job you just interviewed for is beside the point.)

Follow Up with the Hiring Coordinator (Diplomatically!)

  • E-mail a brief thank-you to the hiring coordinator  and others who assisted with your job interview
  • If you didn’t get to ask about timeline, inquire about it in the e-mail to your main contact
  • For the first week or two after your job interview, e-mail contact is best.
  • After two weeks, if you’ve heard nothing, call the hiring coordinator.
  • Reiterate your interest and ask about the timeline (or, if they told you one, ask if it has changed since you last inquired.) It’s possible that other job interviews had to be rescheduled or that other candidates cancelled, and this can postpone the decision date.

Don’t Get Disappointed Until There is a Reason to Be Disappointed

  • Colleges and universities are intrinsically bureaucratic, and this slows down many processes. Remind yourself that not hearing back quickly could be a result of this, and not due to rejection.
  • Don’t tie yourself to the whipping post. You’ll need your self-esteem if you want to keep moving forward. Not getting a particular job doesn’t mean you aren’t qualified. Not hearing back doesn’t mean you didn’t get a job, either. So letting bad self-talk and self-criticism drive you crazy doesn’t solve anything. Don’t do it!

Whether or Not You Hear Back, Move On

Make sure you read that right. It’s not a typo. I did say “whether or not you hear back,” rather than “when you hear back,” because the reality is that some institutions and hiring agents don’t call applicants they rejected right away, and others don’t call at all. There could be other reasons for this. For example, they could still be interested in you, but only if negotiations or a background check on the preferred candidate don’t pan out. Institutions are loath to release viable finalists after they have interviewed them and liked them. Closing out a process entirely isn’t wise, until they have a written acceptance from another candidate. Nobody likes to start from scratch if you still have candidates you have interviewed, are available, and would hire. And, of course, some people will do anything to avoid difficult conversations, so they may just send a form  letter out at a later time.

The result is that these realities make moving on to the next thing the wisest choice. So after you wait a couple of weeks, make contact, and don’t get an answer (or don’t get the one you wanted), keep moving. Research opportunities and apply for them. Accept more job interviews. Relax, take care of yourself, and keep doing your current job to the best of your abilities. Don’t let rejection (or the mere threat of it) leave you waiting by the phone, despairing over your circumstances. Doing so means that you are choosing to staying stuck, and that’s no way to find your next job.